Naomi Shihab Nye Biography

Naomi Shihab Nye (born March 12, 1952) is a poet, songwriter, and novelist. She was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother. Although she calls herself a "wandering poet", she refers to San Antonio as her home. She says a visit to her grandmother in the West Bank village of Sinjil was a life-changing experience. Nye was the recipient of the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature.

Biography

At the age of seven, Nye began writing poems for a magazine article. She was influenced by her mother. Many of her early works were based on things such as cats, squirrels, friends, teachers, etc. When she was fourteen she moved to the West Bank with her family. There she visited her Palestinian grandmother and moved back to San Antonio a year later, while the Six Day War was brewing. She attended Trinity University, receiving a BA in English and world religions, and lives in San Antonio to this day.

These experiences of being part of both a majority and minority in cultures heavily influenced her political views and would eventually become part of the messages in her many collections of poetry. Her book Fuel is an example. Some of her earlier works were published in Seventeen, Modern Poetry Studies, and Ironwood.

She refers to herself as the "wandering poet"? because she has traveled the world to hold writing workshops and inspire people of all ages for about 40 years. She is an author of many poetry books and children fictions. Her poems are based on heritage and peace and are connected to her experience as an Arab-American. Her work has been acknowledged by many journals and reviews throughout the world. In 2009, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

She is married to photographer Michael Nye. They have a son named Madison.

Career

Nye"?s first two chapter books, Tattooed Feet (1977) and Eye-to-Eye (1978), are written in free verse and possess themes of questing. Nye"?s first full-length collection, Different Ways to Pray (1980), explores the differences between and shared experiences of cultures from California to Texas and from South America to Mexico. Hugging the Jukebox (1982), a full-length collection that won the Voertman Poetry Prize, focuses on the connections between diverse peoples and on the perspectives of those in other lands. Yellow Glove (1986) presents poems with more tragic and sorrowful themes. According to the Poetry Foundation, Fuel (1998) may be Nye"?s most acclaimed volume and ranges over a variety of subjects, scenes and settings.

Awards and recognition

Nye has won many awards and fellowships, among them four Pushcart Prizes, the Jane Addams Children's Book award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and many notable book and best book citations from the American Library Association, and a 2,000 Witter Bynner Fellowship. In 1997, Trinity University, her alma mater, honored her with the Distinguished Alumna Award.

In June 2009, Nye was named as one of PeaceByPeace.com's first peace heroes. In 2013, Nye won the Robert Creeley Award.

In October 2012, she was named laureate of the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children"?s Literature. The NSK Prize is a $25,000 juried award sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and World Literature Today magazine. In her nominating statement, Ibtisam Barakat, the juror who championed Nye for the award wrote, "Naomi"?s incandescent humanity and voice can change the world, or someone"?s world, by taking a position not one word less beautiful than an exquisite poem."? Barakat commended her work by saying, "Naomi"?s poetry masterfully blends music, images, colors, languages, and insights into poems that ache like a shore pacing in ebb and flow, expecting the arrival of meaning."?

Published works

Poetry

• A Maze Me: Poems for Girls. Greenwillow Books. 2005. ISBN 978-0060581893
• Honeybee: poems & short prose. Greenwillow Books. 2008. ISBN 978-0060853907
• Tender Spot: Selected Poems. Bloodaxe Books. 2008. ISBN 978-1-85224-791-1

Novels

• Habibi
• The Turtle of Oman
• Going, Going

Short Stories

• Hamadi
• Tomorrow, Summer

Discography

• Rutabaga-Roo "? I've Got a Song and It's for You (Flying Cat, 1979)

Editor

Critical studies

• Gmez-Vega, Ibis. "The Art of Telling Stornoyies in the Poetry of Naomi Shihab Nye." MELUS 26.4 (Winter 2001): 245-252.
• Gmez-Vega, Ibis. "Extreme Realities: Naomi Shihab Nye's Essays and Poems." Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 30 (2010): 109-133.
• Mercer, Lorraine, and Linda Strom. "Counter Narratives: Cooking Up Stories of Love and Loss in Naomi Shihab Nye's Poetry and Diana Abu-Jaber's Crescent." MELUS 32.4 (Winter 2007):
• Orfalea, Gregory. "Doomed by Our Blood to Care: The Poetry of Naomi Shihab Nye." Paintbrush 18.35 (Spring 1991): 56-66.

Forewords

• Clack, Cary, (2009). Clowns and Rats Scare Me. Trinity University Press. ISBN 9781595340375
• Stafford, William, (2014). The Osage Orange Tree. Trinity University Press. ISBN 9781595341846